Veronica Bartlett Interview, September 11, 2021

Hi, I'm Angie Whitehurst, and your name is...

Veronica Bartlett.

Nice to meet you. I'm going to ask you a question. In your work life, [inaudible] is there anything you felt that is of value that you can share with us. Made you proud or made you happy, that brought you joy.

Wow, I would say, the longest career I've had is as a stay-at-home mom to four children and they are now they range in age from 20 to 29 and they're amazing human beings. So that makes me really proud and it was a wonderful decision. And for the past eight years. I've worked in an alternative high school that is composed of, gosh, over 80% immigrants and over 90% second language and to watch those students, many of whom are adults, there's no upper age limit and they are working so hard to earn a full high school diploma. Some of them have come with no English and they're so grateful and they're hardworking. And they come to me at the most stressful time because I give them standardized tests. That's my job. I'm not a teacher. I give standardized test for living and I don't like standardized tests, but it's a necessary evil for them to graduate and it can be very, very gratifying. And the people, leave that room after sitting there for five hours struggling to pass this test and they say thank you, Miss. They thank me and I just think it's an amazing. It's been an amazing experience to see people, really working hard to improve their lives in our country.

It seems as if you have a gift of working with people, working across many bridges and obstacles of diversity of language. That's awesome.

I don't know. I credit the staff, the teaching staff for that. My job, I guess, is to make a stressful situation, a little less stressful for them. And that's what I try to do.

Do you think that being a mom, and raising four children, do you think that that experience or that job had anything to do with helping you with working in the high school?

Oh yes, I think it taught me people are each different. They have different learning styles. They have different needs for, you know, some people need more warm fuzzy approach. Some people need a pragmatic approach. I have children that run the spectrum. I think that has helped inform me how to deal with different people and yeah, I think I had in year where I studied in France, and I was struggling to learn the language and I have found that to be invaluable. Because I can appreciate how difficult it is for these students. And I can appreciate when they're looking at me like they kind of understand what I'm saying, but not quite that, I will think how can I reiterate that in a more simplified manner so they understand. So I guess you just draw from all of life's expereinces.

You have a lot of insight.

Well, I don't know maybe.

Not everyone can do that so I am going to ask you, what advice can you give to people who are working in environments that need more kindness, more sharing, more openness? What would you suggest?

Well I think the age-old saying to put yourself in their shoes. We haven't walked in my, you know, I haven't walked a mile in your moccassians since I haven't been born in a war-torn country and risked my life to come here for a better life.

How do you teach compassion? That seems like what you have a lot of.

You know thats a good question. I guess I have always felt that compassion can be quite inborn. I mean I think if you can teach it someone makes a comment, that might not be seen as kind or understanding, you can say I don't see it like that. This person may be dealing with X or Y. And I know when faculty meetings, you know, I work with school district thats very affluent and they don't understand our students. and I have spoken up on their behalf and others situations where I'll say please don't say that because our students have to approach it this way. And they will say, you know, thank you for telling me that because I've never experienced that. So I think just to try to tell people what other peoples experience's are helps.

Should that be on the job description?

I guess. It depends. What kind of environment you're working in. But yeah, maybe.

Do we need to have more people who are multiplingual in the schools? [inaudible]

I think I think that it will some of my conversations with students have been that it's not always helpful if there are a lot of people who are multilingual becasue then they're not forced to master English. So I think in some ways we don't necessarily need more multilinguists but more patience. We need more understanding. Um, more compassion.

[inaudible] Thank you for sharing.

Boy, I'll stick with that job!

[inaudible] I'm curious about it. Why some teachers are just loved... and others?

Or you remember ther for the wrong reasons. Yeah, we all have those right. I think it comes from if you love what you do. I remember when I was being recruited, very heavily for this job. And I said to my husband, I hate standarized testing I think there is too much of it. I'll just be a cog in the wheel. And he said, "but you would create a freindly atmosphere for something that is not going away so thats what you can do"

SATs, in Virigna we have the state standards of learning test at many grade levels. It's a a lot.

Its a big deal.

Yes it is a big deal. Becasue they have to pass them to graduate.

And you have to pass tests to teach.

Yes, which I recently had to do because they changed my job description. After five years. They said, oh, you need a teaching certificate to do this job. As I said that wasn't in the job description and they said, well, you have three years to do it. So I did, I don't intend to every teacher. That doesn't appeal to me, but I did it. So I could keep my job.

Congratulations!